//------------------------------//
// Chapter Twenty-Five 
// Story: Rainbow Connection 
// by ahilty 
//------------------------------//

Chapter Twenty-Five


Twilight flapped her wings, hovering over Tirek and watching as their beams speed towards each other.  Clearly he meant for them to met in the middle, and he probably expected a beam war of will.  However, Twilight had no idea how her power compared to his.
If this doesn’t take him out, he’ll probably kill Draggle and have Shining shield the Heart.  He could have all the powers of Nightmare Moon, plus this world’s Tirek.  I can’t fight him head on and hope that I can take him out in time.   To be honest, taking the Heart is the most logical option, but if I do that Draggle dies.  Time to multitask!
Multitasking was, in general, a bad idea, especially for Twiight.  The first time she tried a huge multitasking job was back when she was Celestia’s student.  She had attempted to write a paper for her class, while watching a hoofball game with her brother and parents, and write another separate letter to Celestia.  She ended up writing a complete mess of a paper about hoofball stats to Celestia, and gave her brother a rather nonsensical letter at the end of the day, and teleported a hoofball to her essay teacher.  After that she had a small prelude meltdown, a small cloud of sad unicornness that would have been a warning sign of her later manic tendencies had not Celestia merely chalked them up to pressure and the fact that Twilight had still been a little filly.
There was a good end to the story though.  After that Celestia decided to let little Spike be Twilight’s assistant, something the small dragon had been begging for since he could talk.  
However, she was no longer a filly.  She was an alicorn, and if alicorns had great magical powers, surely they also had magical multitasking powers.
The moment her beam met Tirek’s, Twilight dove to the side where the goblin was menacing Draggle.  She gripped the creature’s spear with her magic on the way down, twisting it around and thumping the goblin in the face with the blunt end.  Out of the corner of her eye she noticed that Tirek’s beam had ripped right through hers, and took a second to wince at the knowledge that if she had stayed where she was she would at least have been knocked back.
Still, she was able to swoop down and grab the witch with a hoof.  Contact was all she needed.  With a magical poof she and Draggle disappeared, then appeared a moment later next to the Heart.  Shining blinked as Twilight bucked him in the side, pushing him backwards as she gripped the Heart in her magic.  She grinned and ran towards a door at the right wall.   She felt a tug on her mane, and looked up as Draggle sneered at her.  It looked like she was trying to pull herself down towards Twilight’s back.  She blinked and remembered the times Draggle rode other ponies.  She blinked, but then considered that carrying just the Heart in her magical grip would indeed strain her magic.  Indeed if she was still a unicorn she would be starting to feel the strain now, and who knew what else she would encounter trying to get the Heart out.  So, she went ahead and plopped the witch on her back.  Now she could mostly focus her magic on the Heart.
It felt…odd…Draggle was a lot taller and much longer then Spike.  In fact Twilight was a bit unsure on how the human was managing to keep her feet from dragging on the ground.  But, Twilight’s new earth pony strength seemed up to the job.  If she could just make it out with the Heart and get it to Rarity this would all be over.  
Twilight had just enough time to hear a magical poof before she felt something slam into her side, making her tumble off balance to the ground.  Still unbalanced from Draggle’s unfamiliar weight and shape, both she and Twilight ended up skidding on the ground, and the Heart flew out of Twilight’s grasp.  Shining leaped away from Twilight and landed on top of the Heart.  His horn shone, and he and the Heart were incased in a shield.  He smirked at Twilight.
“Nice try, Twili.”  He said.
Twilight struggled to her feet and stood and faced Shining, aiming a bolt of magic at the shield in the hopes of shattering it.  But once her magic struck the shield she knew that he brother’s special talent in magical shields would block her.  Oh she could break through eventually, but she would either have to take a long time to chip away, or blast him all at once.  Blasting all at once could seriously hurt him.  
Twilight’s grunted as she felt Draggle pull herself up by grabbing onto Twilight’s back, and Twilight used a wing to help Draggle pull herself up.  Twilight’s ears twitched as she heard Tirek stomping towards them.  She turned with a mental shrug to watch him come closer.
“Get ready.  I’m going to have to move pretty quickly.”  Twilight muttered to Draggle.  But just as she was about to leap into the air the door behind her burst open.  Twilight looked behind her, her heart sinking as she beheld the Changeling swarm.  She was surrounded with only one other within reach to help.  For a moment she wondered if perhaps she should surrender, but that thought was instantly pushed back.  Surrender was not an option.  She would have to fight all the Changelings, and Tirek, and her corrupted friends, until she couldn’t fight anymore.  She lit up her horn, ready to blast them all.
To her surprise the Changelings buzzed right over her head and lunged for Tirek, biting and snapping their fangs at him.  Tirek took a step back in surprise and began to swat them away.  He roared.
“What!  Traitors!”
The Changelings chittered and buzzed, one of them flying close to Tirek’s face.  “You hurt out little Queen!  You will die!”  The Changeling then yelped as it was swatted away.  
Tirek began to blast Changelings out of the sky with seeming little effort, but his attention was now off Twillight.  She backed away from him a few steps, and then looked over at Shining Armor and his shield.  A small group of the Changlings had broken off and was slamming at the shield, attempting to shatter it.
“Twilight, are you okay?”  Twilight gasped and looked over as Cadence trotted up to them.  Or at least she hoped it was Cadence.  Not having time to do their little dance, Twilight instead zapped ‘Cadence’ with her Changeling detector spell.  Cadence shook her head, but nodded at her.  “It’s okay, it’s really me.”
“Why are they helping us?”  Twilight as Tirek roared and charged swarms of Changelings.  The creatures were so numerous that a full squad of them could keep the centuar’s attention, while the others dived bombed and cocooned corrupted ponies.  In fact the corrupted forces were so taken aback by the sudden turn that most could only gape as they were assaulted by their former insectoid allies.  Even more Changelings, along with Team Break Things, were swarming over the corrupted Rainbow, pulling it away from it’s prisoners.  Soon, a hairy brown arm began to pitch people over the rainbow, until there was no one left.  The Changelings grabbed Scorpan’s arms and lifted him out of the Rainbow, which spun around as if confused by the sudden assault.
“Tirek attacked their young queen.”  Cadence moved her feathers to reveal a small queen Changeling attached to her back.  Draggle leaned down from where she was sitting on Twilight to peer at it.  
“She’s okay?”  Draggle asked.
“She’ll be just fine.”  Cadence said as she tucked her wing back around the baby.  “Now…” She trotted over to her husband, who was still trying to maintain his shield over the Heart.  “Shining.  Let that shield down.”
“No!”  Shining strained.  “Never.”
“Oh, I think you will.”  Cadence smiled, and suddenly teleported.  Twilight knew for a fact that Cadence couldn’t teleport as fast or as far as she could, but the small jump needed to pass through Shining’s barrier was just within Cadence’s power.  Cadence had been born a pegasus, and her alicorn powers were fueled by love, not by pure magic like Twilight’s was.  And, as Cadence leaned forward, wrapped an arm around Shining’s neck, and pulled him in for a kiss, Twilight guessed that special talent for love had a hand in that teleport.  Twilight chuckled as Draggle made a rather disgusted noise, but the kiss had the desired effect.  The shield shimmered, then fell as Shining started to kiss his wife back.  Corrupted or no, Cadence could still hold his complete and utter attention.  The Changelings around them hissed and glowed green as they fed off the couple’s excess love.  They then turned and swarmed towards Tirek, powered by love.  The first of group of Changelings, who had been tiring, flew off as the new empowered group took their place.  Tirek roared and swatted at the annoying creatures, but they would not relent.
“We have to find Rairty and the others!”  Twilight rushed towards the Heart, getting ready to pick it up.
“No need, dear.  I’m here.  Just keep that ghastly beast off of me and we will have our friends back.”  Rarity seemed to appear like magic, and Twilight smiled.
“How did you find us?”
“You were rather loud.”
“And Tirek has a tendency to keep important things in his throne room.  Wasn’t that hard.”  Red Spike smiled.
“And this is why all of my soul storing items are hidden in places like sock drawers and outhouses.  No one looks there.”  Rath tilted his skull at Twilight, trailing two rather irate witches in his wake.  Hydia and Reeka sort of glared at Twilight.  Or maybe at Draggle, Twilight wasn’t sure.  She was very sure that Draggle was glaring at them.  It was practically radiating off from somewhere on Twilight’s back.
“Now, if you dears will be so kind.”  Rarity trotted over to the Heart.  While Twilight was sure that with Rath here the lich could do it himself, she wasn’t about to say so in case he wanted to argue.  Besides, she trusted Rarity to keep to the magic spell more then Rath.  Unless Rath had been lying about the sequence, but then it had worked on Magic Star and the others.  Keeping this in mind Twilight put herself between Tirek and Rarity.  She felt Draggle gripping her mane again.
“Got an eye behind us.  Focus on him.”  The witch muttered, and Twilight nodded.  She was beginning to think that having a monkey person riding you wasn’t so bad, even if it was starting to hurt a bit.
Rarity lifted the runes in her magic carefully, completely trusting Twilight to protect her.  It helped that she also had her team circling around her, keeping her safe from all angles.  She briefly spared at look at Rath.  Even though he had no actual face to form an expression she thought she could sense…encouragement?  Mabye?  Perhaps.  Either way, she focused on the runes, lifting Reveal first and letting her magic leak into the rune.
Reveal.
Rarity gasped as the Heart blazed before her.  Even with the corruption seeping into it, staining it’s surface, Rarity could still see it.  The Heart shone like Celestia’s sun.  She could sense it everywhere, lines of bright energy surging from it and touching everything that was Ponyland.  She could sense, rather then see, the land itself.  The rivers, the mountains, the plains.  She could feel the thrum of the rocks beneath her, and for a moment she wondered if this was how earth ponies felt.  Inside the glittering facets of the huge gem she saw a bright shining city full of ponies that resembled the Ponylanders she had grown to know, but so much more.  But wait, no, it was two cities.  One weathered and old, and the other bright and new.  She could see the Estate, and Dream Castle.  At once she could see Wind Whistler the serious, logical pony, and a much younger, much sillier foal that Wind Whistler once was.  She could see a tiny white earth pony filly, white and beautiful, and a little pale blue unicorn filly as they played near a lake, and as they grew they spouted wings and horns and Rarity could finally recognize them.
Who knew that Princess Celestia had started life as an earth pony?
She could see a tall, terrifying lich leaning over a pale mint colored unicorn.  Even with a bare skull she could see the lich trembling in what Rarity could guess was sorrow.  She saw the lich pull the pony close.
“What have you done?”  Someone quietly sobbed.  Was it Rath?  Rarity?  Someone or somepony else?  She couldn’t tell.
She could stand here all day and only be able to process a bare fraction of what lay before her now.  Was this how alicorns felt when they ascended?  If not it must surely be close.  But Rarity knew she could not indulge right now.  As much as it pained her, she had to move quickly.  She could only hope she had not been dazzled by the sights for to long.  Her friends, in the here and now, needed her.  So with as much mental fortitude as she could Rarity raised the next rune, and let it come forth.
Separate.
Ponyland itself bucked against it.  It was not so long ago that the land was dark and twisted.  The Nightmare Vale.  For so long the darkness held sway, and though the Heart was bright and wonderful, it was not itself inherently good.  It was inherently magical, but it was as much influenced by the creatures of the valley as the creatures of the valley were influenced by it.  Rarity could barely put it into a coherent thought, much less actual words.  But as the land fought her she raised the last rune.  She didn’t even notice her perfectly maintained mane falling out of place, or the lines of disgusting sweat running down her flanks.  Her mind was too full.  If anything else entered her brain it would explode.  She fumbled with the skill of a filly barely learning to levitate, but the rune was raised.  She could see the sludge.  She aimed.  Fired.
Dispel.
Rarity fell to the ground and lay there as the rune hit the corruption.  There was a flash and a horrible roaring sound.  The runes she had in her bad scattered everywhere, but Rarity’s eyes could see nothing but the Heart.  The images were fading, but Rarity wanted more.  Surely now that the job was done she could watch?  
She was so tired.
And it was so dark.

At once the magic of the Heart radiated outward as the lines that only Rarity, and perhaps the Princess Ponies, were aware of were cleaned and purged.  Ponies, once corrupted, snapped their heads forwards and gazed at the artifact.  Even the Equestrian ponies stopped and stared as the mist that once clouded their brains lifted, taken by the Heart that was none to pleased at being used by a lesser being like Tirek.  Colors brightened to normal.  Eyes snapped to their normal color and each pony found himself or herself shaking their head as their minds cleared.  
Except Shining Armor.  But he was a little busy.
Tirek stopped his rampage against the Changelings and stared as well.  He watched as the light shone from the Heart, evaporating his mist.  He growled and extended his hand, the Rainbow coming back to him before it too could be recovered.  He stared at the fallen form of Rarity, then to the dragons attempting to shake her awake.
“You…” Tirek growled and scooped up a discarded orc’s spear.  “YOOOOOU!  I SHOULD HAVE TAKEN YOUR HEAD LONG AGO!  FOUL USELESS SNAKE!”  Tirek surged forwards in sudden rage, aiming the spear at Red Spike.  “Reprobate ungrateful dragon!  I let you live at my side and you and that bastard prince did this to me!”
“No!”  To everyone’s surprise it was Rath who leaped in front of the charging Tirek, attempting to block the spear under his blade.  “Don’t touch that unicorn!”  Tirek growled and swatted him away into a wall, but it gave Twilight enough time to levitate Rarity and the two dragons away.  Tirek’s head jerked to the side and he glared at Twilight.
“Foal, you support that tyrant!  You bow before a weak, useless little princess.  I was always the better princess!  I was the magical one!  I was the warrior!  She had NOTHING before I made her a god!  You dare worship her over ME!  I guarded your dreams for centuries and this is how you repay me!?” 
Twilight blinked.  For all this time Tirek’s voice had been always male, but now it was pitched higher.  More feminine.  More like Nightmare Moon.   Twilight’s eyes widened and she remembered.  “It’s both…” But she only had time for those two words before Tirek began to swing his spear.  Darkness began to ooze over the shaft and onto the blade as the foul magic b egin to twist the weapon.  Longer then Tirek himself now, the blade bladed spear began to smash against the walls and ceiling of the castle, and the entire thing began to quake.
“Stop, you’re going to kill us all!”  Megan begged, but the girl’s voice only increased Tirek’s rage.
“Stupid little girl!  How dare you come into my kingdom and kill ME!  The ponies were MINE to use and take you have the gall to come here and deny me my right as king!”  Tirek roared, eyes flitting from one figure to another.  “Damn you prince!  I could have made you a legend and you choose them over me!  After all I did for you!  Treacherous insects!  How dare you worship her instead of me!  She’s not even a real god!  She can’t fight at all!  All she does is sit around and eat cake and talk to ponies!  Wasting her time with diplomacy!  Turning my kin against me!  Take my castle!  Purge my land!  It’s my land!  It’s all mine!  It’s all mine and we will kill all of you!  All of you!  There will be nothing left of this land but ash and US!  We spent thousands of years dead on the moon after our sister killed us with the Rainbow of Harmony and GAAAARRRAAAAAAAAAAGGGAGGHHAHAHAHAHAAHA!”
Tirek’s wild ranting and screaming grew until the thing before them was no long a rational being in any sense of the word.  AS the voices and memories mixed the creature’s face contorted in primal feral fury as it stomped around.  The walls and ceiling begain to break as Changelings flew upwards, spitting goo at the cracks and trying to hold the ceiling up as Tirek flailed at them.  Ponies backed away as the creature trembled, shook and swing at them, trying to kill everything that moved.
Twilight threw up a shield after shield as rocks began to fall, trying desperately to find a way to protect all of them and the Changelings as well.  If they came down she knew that they might lose ponies, but if she only shielded the ponies then the Changelings would be crushed.  
“Everypony!  Get out of here!  Run for the doors!”  She bellowed, and to her relief Megan and Scorpan were herding the ponies out.  She felt Draggle leave her back as the witch moved to help her friends out.  She could see Wind Whistler galloping over to the witch, and assumed they would be safe.  She turned and advanced towards Tirek, making sure not to trod on the runes that were still scattered over the floor.
“I’m the one you want, Nightmare!  I killed you!  I’ll do it again!  I am Celestia’s champion!  FIGHT ME!”  Twilight bellowed, hoping to drag Tirek’s attention away from the walls long enough for everyone to get out.
Tirek turned, but it wasn’t Twilight he charged for.  
It was Draggle.
For a second Draggle froze as she heard the hooves pounded towards her, and for a moment it wasn’t a crazed centaur rushing towards her, but a gigantic boar.  Draggle wanted to move, wanted to run, but in the end she was frozen in terror.  She could hear screaming, and she thought it was Wind Whistler, but Wind Whistler never screamed.  
And suddenly Tirek stopped as they felt a tug on its tail.  They turned their head slowly and gazed down at the thing preventing them from squashing the bug before them.  Another bug.  A small, round bug.  It was Hydia.  They thought that was it’s name.  Another traitor, like the rest of them.
“Stay away from my daughter.”  Hydia growled, and threw a bolt of fire at the centaur’s eyes.  Tirek roared and spun, spear twirling in a savage, rough arch.  They forgot to use the sharp edge.  In the end it didn’t matter.  They were so big.  So strong.  The bug was crushed.  The other bug was screaming.  So was another bug.  It didn’t matter.  They would die.  Die die die.
“YAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”  Tirek reared in victory and swung the spear around and around.  Purple light erupted from the ground and hit them again in the face.  Tirek focused.
The alicorn.  The element of magic.  Twilight Sparkle.  Celestia’s Champion.
She looked angry.  Her face contorted in rage.  Tears in her eyes. 
Why?
No matter.
They lifted their spear and rushed forwards to meet the Champion.  It would be nice to see Celestia cry over her Champion’s broken from, as the two monkey bugs were wailing over their fellow even as Tirek picked up speed.
Twilight could barely see the monster rumbling towards her.  She had never known Hydia.  Only knew her from what Draggle and the Ponylanders had told her.  But she hadn’t deserved that.  Nopony did.  And nopony deserved to see their mother crushed like that.  And the more damage that this thing caused, the more lived would be lost, and one was more than enough!
Twilight looked down at her hooves to the scattered runes.  She remembered that there were three in a sequence.  But she didn’t have the time.  She only had a single shot at this, and it would have to be enough.
Twilight scooped up a Dispel rune in her hooves and flew at Tirek’s face.  It was roaring and laughing and lickings its lips as if it wanted to eat her.  A small researcher Twilight deep in the alicorn’s mind wondered if this was what happened when two souls merged together after they died, but most of Twilight’s mind was busy concentrating.  The rune was Dispel.  She had to get rid of Tirek.
Dispel.  I want it gone.  Forever.  Where it can never hurt anypony ever again.  I don’t care where.  Just gone, so it can never hurt anypony ever again.
Twilight let the rune drop from her hooves towards the monster’s face, and blasted it with her magic.  It almost comically landed on the monster’s nose and for a brief moment balanced there like a ball on the nose of a seal.  Then the rune seemed to open as a dark hole in space consumed Tirek’s head, then its shoulders, then its midsection.  Twilight landed over on the other side just as the monster’s hooves disappeared.  She threw a shield around the room just as the ceiling finally crumbled, shielding everypony and every changeling and every other thing that might be in this room of the castle.
“OUT!”  Twilight bellowed to the ceiling, and the Changelings gratefully buzzed out of the room.  She turned, panting, and she was the only one there.  Twilight moaned.  She was so tired.  Her horn ached.  Her wings dragged as she stumbled to the Heart of Ponyland.  She could feel the ceiling crumbling against her shield, but she couldn’t run the risk of losing the Heart.  She placed a trembling hoof on the artifact, and for a moment she felt a surge of energy.  She closed her eyes, and vanished.

“Help her damnit!  You’re a necromancer, aren’t you?”
Rath leaned over what remained of Hydia.  He was already shaking his skull even as Reeka pulled in another breath to berate him.
“The soul is gone.  If I were to use necromancy she still would not come back.  You’d only get a zombie suffling around.  In order to make a lich you need something to contain the soul, and she never did that.  I can’t do anything.”  He straighted and looked down at Reeka.  “Ree-“
“Useless bag of bones!”  Reeka kicked him, and part of Rath’s femur came loose.  He did nothing in retaliation, simply watched as Reeka turned her glare on Draggle.
“You!  I hope you’re finally happy!”  Reeka marched over, and the Ponylander’s circled around Draggle in an attempt to keep her away.  That didn’t stop Reeka from pushing Truly’s head down (completely ignoring the pony protesting such treatment) so should could lean forwards and shake a fist at her sister.  “This is all your fault!”
“I-I” Draggle stammered, looking around at the ponies around her, and very deliberately not looking at the body.  Or Reeka.
“The last thing you told her was that you hated her!  If you had just swallowed your pride and come with us she’d be here!  You killed her!  It’s all your fault!”  Reeka suddenly turned and began to march away.  “I hope you’re proud of yourself.  Traitor.”  Reeka hissed, never looking back as she began to trudge her way back to the volcano alone.
Rath reset his bone and slowly lifted Hydia in his arms.  He turned and began to follow Reeka.  He paused for a moment and turned his gaze on Draggle.  “We will talk later.”  He said.
Draggle shook her head.  “No.”
“We will.”  Rath said firmly, but left it at that.  He followed Reeka, who didn’t protest.  Or if she did, she didn’t do it within earshot.
A few moments later, Twilight teleported onto the field, hoof still on the Heart.  She looked around at the gathered forces, and smiled.
“We.  Won.”  She declared, and promptly collapsed.
Majesty, an eye watching the disappearing forms of Rath and Reeka, blinked.  “Did we?”